The Clone Zone sold Poppers, a drug widely used by gays which enhances sexual arousal and performance. That’s why I went to Clone Zone. I could buy them on the internet. But I prefer to purchase what I need while I am in Soho and discard it, just as I do my gay self, before returning to my other life.
Poppers is a slang term for a group of chemicals also known as club drugs. Composed of alkyl nitrates or isopropyl nitrates, they have been popular since the 1970s disco scene and, more recently, widely used amongst gay men as a way to enhance sexual pleasure.
The drug opens up blood vessels, increasing blood flow and reducing blood pressure, while increasing the user’s heart rate and producing, literally, a rush of blood to the head.
It is legal to sell them in the UK, in bottles with labels like Liquid Gold, Rush and Xtreme Power, as long as they are not advertised for human consumption. I don’t do the harder drugs popular in the gay community, like mephedrone or crystal meth. I need to remain in control of my head, even if not other parts of my body. I continued on my way, turning right off Old Compton Street into Wardour Street. A bottle of Xtreme was tucked into my jacket pocket, which I, one way or another, was quite determined to find a use for later.
I was beginning to feel the spirit of ‘anything goes’ all around me. I began to walk with more of a spring in my step. I held my head higher and started to look around me, taking it all in. There was a drag queen standing in a doorway to my right, smoking a cigarette through a long, black, Bakelite holder, twenties or thirties style. She smiled at me. I smiled back.
This was fantasy land, I reminded myself, I could do what I liked here and with whom I liked. I could be whoever I wanted to be whilst I was here.
I felt almost happy as I approached The Freedom Bar. This was a cool place. A gay cocktail bar with style and panache. I peered through a window. Even the waiters were gorgeous, muscles bulging through tight white shirts. The clientele looked relaxed, at ease. Like any group of people in any bar.
I’d never been to the bar before. After all, I wasn’t worthy of this sort of place or these sort of people. I was the hole in the corner sort. I didn’t have the courage of my own convictions. Not in anything. How could I ever aspire to be accepted by the likes of them, when I couldn’t even accept myself?
I had met men like me before. Well, perhaps not quite like me, but men who were not entirely sure of themselves. Decent ordinary men who had another life, one they were not yet ready to share with the world, even in these allegedly enlightened days.
There was one in particular I hoped I might meet again. Here, in this bar. Not that I could really expect him to have anything to do with me, though, not after the last time.
There were no empty tables. In any case, I told the greeter, a woman wearing a tuxedo over tights and a bow tie, that I preferred to be at the bar. She escorted me to a vacant stool. I ordered myself a Cosmopolitan. I’d never drunk one before, but I knew it was popular amongst gay men. It was pink after all. I found that I quite liked the drink. It was certainly more to my taste than the beer I usually downed, as part of my straight camouflage. I glanced casually around, in such a way that I did not seem to be looking. Nonchalant. Cool. Or that’s what I hoped, anyway.
The truth was that I was well aware that I wouldn’t be cool if I lived to be 100. I am the living breathing walking epitome of not cool. Dressed the way I was that night, complete with gelled hair and tattoo, I might almost have looked the part. Amongst those gathered in this bar I may even have overdone the ‘gay look.’ But I wasn’t truly it, and never would be.
Also, this was all too open, too ordinary. I was not comfortable.
My spirits fell again. Perhaps I should just go. I didn’t belong here.
I downed the rest of my Cosmo in one gulp, and was about to stand up and leave when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I heard the voice at the same time.
‘Leo,’ he said.
I turned to him. He was even more gorgeous than I remembered. Fresh-faced and boyish. He made me feel even less confident of my own appearance. But then, he was thirteen years my junior. A little more than that actually, because I’d fibbed, just a bit, about my age. I hoped I didn’t look like some of the older guys I’d seen around Soho, trying so desperately to be hip.
But at least I was fit, I told myself.
He had tousled dark blonde hair and gentle brown eyes. The haircut was different to when I’d met him before, even though that was just a few days ago. It was shaven at the sides and spiky on top. I took in the already familiar smattering of freckles on his forehead and along the top of each cheek. His lips twitched into half a smile.
‘Tim,’ I responded. ‘I was hoping you might be here.’
He looked at me quizzically, his head slightly on one side.
‘You remembered?’
‘Of course. You said you’d heard about this place, that it was hot on Friday nights and that you might try it the next weekend.’
‘Only might,’ he said.
I shrugged.
‘I was hoping you would remember too,’ I said.
His smile broadened, fleetingly. Then his face clouded over and he removed his hand from my shoulder.
‘I didn’t understand what happened the last time, though,’ he said. ‘Why did you just go off like that?’
I stared at him. Unsure what to say. After all, how could I explain? But I so didn’t want to lose him again.
Three
The family lived in a small but clearly well-cared-for terraced house, one in several lines of similar properties forming a modest, residential district on the southern outskirts of Bristol. 16, Carraby Street. Dawn Saslow knew she would remember that house and that address for the rest of her life. Her heart was beating fast as she pulled the patrol car to a halt outside.
She glanced towards her senior officer. Vogel’s face was impassive as usual. But she noticed he was blinking rapidly behind his thick spectacles. She’d quickly become aware, in the brief time that she had worked with Vogel, that this was what happened if ever he were uncomfortable, ill at ease or nervous. There was rarely any other indication that Vogel was emotionally affected by anything. He was a self-contained man, who sometimes gave the impression of being quite detached from the rest of the world. It had become known within MCIT that Vogel’s principle interests, apart from his work and his family, were compiling crosswords for an undisclosed specialist publication and playing Backgammon. Usually with his computer, Dawn suspected. The DI not infrequently gave the impression he was more comfortable with computers than people. Naturally, he was known as The Geek.
On the drive Vogel had told Dawn what he knew so far about the dead girl and her family.
Melanie Cook lived with her mother and stepfather, Sarah and Jim Fisher.
Vogel, sticking to the facts as usual, passed no comment about that, but Dawn had known he would be thinking what she was thinking. Parents were always going to be among the suspects in a case like this. A stepfather was a far greater one.
Melanie’s father, Terry Cooke, was a lorry driver. Her stepfather was a jobbing brickie. Her mother worked in Marks and Spencer on the till.
A younger half-sister, Petra, also lived at Carraby Street.
Vogel opened the door on his side of his car.
‘C’mon,’ he said.
Dawn nodded. She stepped outside the vehicle and began to follow him to the house. A smattering of tulips, the last of the UK’s spring bulbs to flower every year, were still in bloom in the little front garden, which was surrounded by a manicured privet hedge just two feet or so tall. From the moment the front door was opened the family waiting inside would know. They always did. Nothing would ever be the same for them after that.